It’s the biggest new release of the year so far, but the bad press over Dead Space 3 has seen it sell over a quarter less than its predecessor.

There was never any doubt that Dead Space 3 would go straight in at number one in this week’s UK sales charts, but in doing so it still managed to sell 26.6 per cent less than Dead Space 2 during its first week.

The Xbox 360 saw the lion’s share of sales, accounting for 65 per cent of the haul. The PlayStation 3 version was on 31 per cent and the PC version (which got to number 24 in the individual formats chart) on 4 per cent – at least in terms of retail sales anyway.

Last week’s number one Ni No Kuni fell all the way to number six in both charts, with a 63 per cent drop in sales from its first week. Although the game was out of stock at a number of major retailers for the majority of last week.

The rest of the all formats top 10 is identical to last week, with few other new releases to rock the boat. The belated launch of the 3DS version of Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed did manage to push Sega’s Mario Kart clone back up to number 10 though, with a 50 per cent increase in sales – 41 per cent of which was due to the 3DS.

There were no other new entries in the top 20, although thanks to the Superbowl Madden NFL 13 did reappear at number 19 in the all formats charts.

With Scribblenauts Unlimited delayed for unknown reasons the only other release last week was Fist Of The North Star: Ken’s Rage 2, which unsurprisingly didn’t make it into either top 40.

Tomorrow though sees the release of Aliens: Colonial Marines, which thanks to the games industry’s usual incompetence with release schedules is the second 18-rate sci-fi horror action game in just four days.

It too is likely to go straight to number one, although whether it’ll stay there with Metal Gear Rising Revengeance and Crysis 3 out the week after remains to be seen…